sylvaine

"Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

"I want women to allow themselves to want food. I want women to be hungry and ask for what they want to eat without apologizing. I want women to stop looking for permission from others before they eat something that is not a carrot or spinach. I want my friends to get the chili fries if they want the chili fries, and not say something like, “It all goes straight to my ____” (hips, thighs, butt, etc.). I want to see a girl sink her teeth into a huge cheeseburger and fries and not cut the burger in half to save some for later. I want my mother to allow herself more than one small square of dark chocolate per day. I want women to take pleasure in food, without punishing ourselves for wanting it."

"Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay. In the modern state there are very few sites where this is possible. The only others that come readily to my mind require belief in an omnipotent creator as a condition for membership. It would seem the most obvious thing in the world to say that the reason why the market is not an efficient solution to libraries is because the market has no use for a library. But it seems we need, right now, to keep re-stating the obvious. There aren’t many institutions left that fit so precisely Keynes’ definition of things that no one else but the state is willing to take on. Nor can the experience of library life be recreated online. It’s not just a matter of free books. A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal."

"I think in the same way that you turn in on yourself, it’s very negative and sort of… destructive to finding opportunity, simply staying in the same place and knowing what you know all the time. I once wanted to open a restaurant where you always get the dish that the person next to you have ordered, because that’s always the one that you wish you had. And I always thought this thing like Netflix, that they should send you a DVD the exact opposite of the kind that you like. That’s the way you learn! So if Amazon says “I see you liked this novel by this novelist - why not try this?” And you say, “Yeah, but that’s completely—!” Yes, that is the point! It is completely different! It’s not your usual thing. You know how we always buy— you know how your partner always says, “Why are you buying that shirt, you’ve got one that exactly like it”? You say, “It’s not exactly like it, it has a slightly different color.” We’re like that in life, we tend to settle so quickly. And the best way to stop that is to keep reinventing oneself."

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world."